Consumer complaints rise by 4% in the first 6 months of 2018

The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) has published its report on the complaints and enquiries received during the first 6 months of 2018. This report provides an in-depth analysis of the complaints received by the Authority during this period.

In total, the MCA received 117 complaints from subscribers of telephony, internet, and television services and those consumers who made use of the postal services. 95% of the complaints received were investigated and closed by MCA within 20 working days. During this period the MCA also received 328 requests for information. 53% of the complaints received related to Quality of Service (QoS) issues with faults being the most common type of complaint received - a total of 34 cases reported. The complaints related to faults, were closely monitored by the MCA to ensure that appropriate actions were undertaken by the service providers to repair the faults at the earliest time possible.

The second most common type of complaint received related to billing issues (33%), namely related to incorrect billing with a total of 21 complaints reported to the MCA. In 7 of these cases, following the necessary investigations, the MCA had to directly intervene requesting the service providers to take necessary remedial action to address the issues reported. The MCA also received 20 complaints related to postal services during the first half of 2018. The MCA brought these cases to the attention of the service provider so that it could further investigate the matters raised and address any ensuing issues accordingly.

As part of its ongoing compliance monitoring, the MCA conducts mystery shopping exercises on the 3 main electronic communications service providers’ customer care. During the first 6 months of 2018, it resulted that the average time taken for a call to be answered by a call agent was 1 minute 5 seconds.

The report includes statistical information on this subject including figures on complaints received by issue and by service provider.